It is well known to generate customised documents, either manually or using an automated system, from precedents or templates.
If this is done manually, then a printed standard form or other precedent, containing blank spaces for particular relevant information, will be filled in and edited on each specific occasion it is used. Instructions may be included in the standard document to help the user insert the correct or appropriate information.
If this is done using an automated system, then an electronically stored document or template will be used, in conjunction with various logical rules and other criteria, to prompt the user for the correct information and to assemble a customised document by associating various relevant rules with variables within the template. For example, the HotDocs® system uses a library of Form Templates, which store both static and dynamic areas of text, that are initially customised by the user, in conjunction with a questionnaire to produce a completed customised document. Necessary information relevant to the dynamic text areas may either be input directly by a user, or gathered from an Answer File. The Answer File contains information which is repeatedly used in the same or similar customised document. Various logical rules and calculation criteria are used to associate information with the template to produce a final customised document. This document may then be edited, printed or stored.
Other known automated systems include that described in WO01/04772. In this system, a server computer runs a document generation program and is capable of communicating with local or remote client computers over a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), such as the internet. A standard document, comprising various items of known information and associated logical rules, is first translated into a form suitable for processing by the document generation program. When instructed to generate a customised document, the server first generates one or more web pages which are sent to client computers for user input of the further information required to evaluate the logical rules. Users may then submit the further information to the server. Once all the required further information has been captured, the server generates a customised document on the basis of the standard document and received further information.
For a fully customised document, which contains no conditional text as all of the information required to be complete, there is no need to provide any form of temporary document which indicates where information needs to be provided. However, it is not always possible for the user to provide enough information to allow the document generation program to generate a fully customised document. The document generation program therefore needs to find a way in which this missing information can be included in a partially customised document. For example, there may be various transaction values, such as currency values, missing, or there may be insufficient information to resolve all of the conditional clauses within the template. Therefore, the partially customised document must have the same information content as the template it is generated from, as well as the ability to cope with and indicate to the user the effect of, missing transaction values and conditional information.
WO03/061474 describes a system for the generation of partially customised documents. Although the system provides a mark up of the information which is not included in the partially customised document, such as conditional clauses, there is no facility to indicate missing or indefinite transaction values, and their effect on the final, fully customised document.
There therefore exists a need to be able to produce a partially customised document contains information regarding missing transaction values rather than merely including the variables given in the template. The mark-up used also needs to be flexible, to accommodate a particular user's needs.